Putin says U.S. is "Parasite" on Global Economy

[jumpy]

hmm, the argument (is it really? or is everyone just passing the buck - hahaha, my little joke - like usual?) over who's country is parasitic on the world economy is missing the point?

Surely a better explanation is that the current global financial mess is a product of greedy people making their greed even greater in places that allow them to do so?
It is not just the US that does this, but most of the developed nations of the world. Any time someone in the UK states a case for stricter financial regulation of banks and markets (ostensibly to protect the ordinary bloke in the street with a low to middle income from having his savings and earnings and assets raped by the consequences of financial meltdown and the inevitable government cuts and taxation in an attempt to mitigate this) there's a whole lot of bleating about how all the financiers will take their prospective imaginary cash some place else where there's less regulation of the markets so we cannot possibly let that happen or we would loose out by not having some of their greed rubbing off on our economy...

I don't know how else to explain the way the credit crunch/housing crash and all of that stuff that happened in the US a few years ago had such a massive knock on effect on the economies of the rest of the worlds developed nations.

Everyone has been so busy patting each-other on the back, congratulating themselves on how frightfully clever they've all been by creating money out of thin air that no-one stopped to think if it was actually a good idea or not.
And because everything is linked in a global financial house of cards it only takes one to flutter in the breeze for the whole lot to come crashing down.

I don' think the US is any more or less parasitical in this respect, all developed nations share the burden and responsibility for it, and therefore the blame too. It just so happens that the US has one of the larger economies in comparison to some other countries - what difference this makes in any real terms when everyone is in on the game is rather beside the point.

The developed nations of the world have put all of their financial eggs in one basket (globalisation). This is fine when everything is running smoothly, but it's a damn stupid idea when it goes wrong.

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by flatsixes

Close, but backwards. Communists are dopes. Putin is a Communist. Ergo, Putin is a dope. Dopes start global conflicts. Putin is a dope. Ergo, Putin starts global conflicts. See? It's easy.

And pray tell what makes Putin a communist.

(We really need a "tongue in cheek" smiley, methinks)

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Originally Posted by Hottentot

And pray tell what makes Putin a communist.

(We really need a "tongue in cheek" smiley, methinks)

I would also appreciate that little information. In my opinion Putin is so capitalist that he makes American "fiscal conservatives" look like ardent followers of Marx and Lenin.

[August]

Originally Posted by Hottentot

And pray tell what makes Putin a communist.

(We really need a "tongue in cheek" smiley, methinks)

I thought being a member of the Communist party was a job requirement in order to work at the KGB.

[yubba]

Inside every communist is a capitalist dying to get out.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

I would start be ending the billions upon billions of dollars spent on foreign aid to places like Africa, the Middle East, Israel, Greece, Lithuania, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Serbia and, oh say, Russia.

Only Greece spend less:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2006_ODA_GNI.png

[Herr-Berbunch]

Originally Posted by Oberon

We'd still have Upholders

I've got some cUpholders in my car, and I believe you can purchase others that can be sited in various other places to keep your drink from falling over...

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Watch this, and weep.

You have my greatest respect for moving out of that place! Well done.

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by August

I thought being a member of the Communist party was a job requirement in order to work at the KGB.

How is the weather in 1991?

[Hawk66]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The EU's GDP is bigger.

I already said it in another thread yesterday, Putin this time is right. The dollar must be replaced as global leading currency.

And may I ask what leading currency you propose? Euro? Then I would say you are kidding...the EU economy as a whole is by no means stronger than the US economy...especially if you look in the future (which region is more attractive for high-skilled Asia people and so on).

We in Germany might think so...that's also the reason why we think we can spend dozens of billions of Euros to get rid of our nuclear plants and do not take care about the real problems, which we will face very soon.

And coming back to Mr. Putin: If he's in such good mood, I would say he should take care about his old cold war submarines, which now the West seems to be responsible to get rid of (at least they have to pay the bill, which means actually billions of Euros)...Why is a country paid for getting rid of old nuclear submarine plants if they have the money to develop and buy new SSNs?

How is the weather in 1991?

Weather is easy
Red Sky at night, shepherds .......errrr .......are all communists too so is the sky...well not the Sky as he is just must mixed up, but the sky is and it is proven that when its red sky in the morning communists are coming...or going if they were on the night shift but it's still a warning.

But seriously Putin, a communist: har:
Did you hear the one about Yeltsin leading the Temperance union?

[August]

Originally Posted by Hottentot

How is the weather in 1991?

Once a dirty rotten commie always a dirty rotten commie.

[Dowly]

So, August, tell me how you REALLY feel?

So, August, tell me how you REALLY feel?

Confused obviously

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by August

Once a dirty rotten commie always a dirty rotten commie.

You explained Putin is a communist, because he worked in KGB, in which being a member of the party was apparently requirement. Therefore joining a party makes one a communist.

KGB, as well as the party he belonged to, ceased to exist in 1991. Therefore Putin couldn't work in KGB anymore after that and couldn't belong to a party that didn't exist. These days we can for sure say that he doesn't belong to the Communist Party of Russia, which has actually been a major rival of the party he belongs to.

Therefore, if one becomes a communist by being part of the party, doesn't one cease to be a communist when one is no longer a member of the party? Putin's policies and the aforementioned rivalry between the parties would support that..

[flatsixes]

Originally Posted by Hottentot

And pray tell what makes Putin a communist.

Well... Putin was in the Communist Party for about 20 years (before it became, um... "unfashionable"). But I think that former Soviet head honcho Gorbachev's fairly recent take on Putin is a bit more insightful than my own:

“He thinks that democracy stands in his way,” Mr. Gorbachev said.

“I am afraid that they have been saddled with this idea that this unmanageable country needs authoritarianism,” Mr. Gorbachev said, referring to Mr. Putin and his close ally, President Dmitri A. Medvedev. “They think they cannot do without it.”

In an interview, Mr. Gorbachev even described Mr. Putin’s governing party, United Russia, as a “a bad copy of the Soviet Communist Party.” Mr. Gorbachev said party officials were concerned entirely with clinging to power and did not want Russians to take part in civic life.

Of course, the source of that quote is the New York Times, which has a few socialist/capitalist identity issues itself. Even so, running a "bad copy of the Soviet Communist Party" twenty years (this month!) after that original was consigned to the ash heap of history tells me that Mr. Putin still pines for the good old days that were Joe Stalin.

Of course, I don't expect Vlad to be milking some cow on a Siberian collective any time soon, but then no real communists ever did that kind of work either.

(We really need a "tongue in cheek" smiley, methinks)

There's something that we can agree about!